The Art of Participation – Randall Szott – Social Practice West
I’m going to be on a panel at SFMOMA (2/07/09) called Social Practice West. It’s part of the events programing for The Art of Participation which purports to survey “how artists have engaged members of the public as essential collaborators in the art-making process.”
The panel will discuss the rise of Social Practice MFA programs on the west coast. Students from those programs will give presentations from their perspective and panelists will act as respondents. I am especially eager to discuss the impact of professionalization on these practices.
I really feel sorry for the person who had to provide a legitimate sounding title for me and I can only imagine the trepidation around presenting my bio in its usual form. According to SFMOMA I’m a “writer.” Who knew?
Lebenskünstler 
a blogging chef maybe?
In fact, the SFMOMA ticketing system (actually Ticketmaster’s ‘Museumtix’) is issuing tickets for Social Practice West for Sunday 8th Feb, not Saturday 7th. As the SFMOMA main pages say Saturday, it looks like the ticketing system’s got it wrong … but this may confuse potential attendees. (I’m letting SFMOMA know.)
hi randall
how did this go? interesting idea, that, about “professionalisation”.
kaprow once said something about “you have nothing to lose but your careers” in his exhortation to the new generation of un-artists. who turned around and became more professional than even he was…
but since professionalism looks different these days from what it used to (at least in some jobs) perhaps this isn’t so surprising…